


The Guide

by DarkSeraphim



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSeraphim/pseuds/DarkSeraphim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silk muses on the prophecy and his own place in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perryvic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/gifts).



> I LOVE this author and his work! I hope I captured Silk well, I had a hard time choosing what to write. He is one of my favorite characters from these books, and I was happy to write him.

The Guide.  
  
It was an accurate title, at the very least.  In retrospect, he could have been called something far more cliched.  'The Thief' or 'The Spy' were far less marketable, and not to mention downright rude.  Accurate, perhaps, but still rather impolite.  So really, 'The Guide' wasn't too bad considering.  That is of course, whether you placed much stock in the prophecy in the first place.    
  
By all accounts he really shouldn't.  Well, perhaps had his circumstances had been different he wouldn't have.  But he was an Alorn.  All Alorns were raised on the prophecy of the Rivan King, the stories of Torak and the Orb.  Those in his...profession, were more pragmatic and less focused on such things.  This was the real world, after all.  Sometimes he wondered what would happen should people collectively stop believing...there was a reason he wasn't a philosopher.  Too many headaches as far as he was concerned.  Better to stick with what he was good at.  
  
He looked back over the camp at his two sleeping companions.  Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Garion.  The Rivan King.  The myth come to life.  Well, two myths.  The sorcerer was quite the legend.  But Garion, now he wasn't quite sure what to make of the boy.    
  
When he had joined this motley crew all those months back, Garion had been just a farmboy ignorant in the ways of the world, wide eyed and innocent just like in the stories.  In retrospect, maybe that should have been his first clue that something else was going on.  The fact that the great sorcerer Belgarath and the lady sorceress Polgara were with him?  Really, he should have seen this coming much sooner.    
  
He wasn't a hero.  He was a spy.  He was a theif.  He was a merchant.  He was a diplomat.  He was an ambasador.  He was anything that he could pull off.  In truth, sometimes he didn't really know what he was anymore.  Who was he?  Was he 'Silk,' the lovable rogue?  Was he Kheldar, pining nobleman?  Was he any of his numerous personas?  Who was he?    
  
He looked again to the sleeping Garion.  A farmboy turned King on his way to kill a God.  He recalled the hours spent with him, teaching him the silent language of gestures, the lectures and lessons on the road.  Garion wasn't really a deciever.  His heart lay open on his sleeve.  He needed someone to show him the ropes, to show him the threads of deception and the man behind the curtain.  A guide in more ways than one.    
  
At the end of the day, Silk was a pragmatic sort.  He knew the propechy was the only way to stopping Torak.  Logic told him so.  Garion had the Orb, and only the wielder of the Orb could destroy the Mad God once and for all and prevent a catastrophe.  So here he was, leading them into the heart of enemy territory.  Only he could do it.  Only he could have brought this newly minted King to the place of battle.  Only he could have helped to turn an innocent farmboy into a young man ready to take his place in the world.    
  
But why?  Why him?  It could have been anybody, really...though the number of people Silk could think of right off of the bat he could count on one hand.  No, really it was best that it was him.  You couldn't trust THAT many people in the world nowadays.  But why had he been chosen?  The gods were awfully peculiar about this sort of thing and to be honest Silk had to not think about it.  Then you got into the questions of destiny and fate and free will and did he choose his own path or was it chosen for him?  Did he really have any say in his own fate?  Were his choices, not just in choosing his career but all choices he had made down to the clothes he decided to wear for a disguise, were they really his own?  Was he his own man or just a name in an old book?  They were disturbing questions and quite frankly they weren't worth his time.  He was quite sure that his endeavors would face a disturbing turn if he kept thinking along those lines.    
  
Silk was pragmatic, but he was also an Alorn.  All Alorns knew deep within their hearts that the Rivan King would return.  All of them could recite the Codex without hesitation even without having rested their eyes on the cover.  Silk was no different.  Even as he questioned his own place in the prophecy, his place in the universe, he knew deep down within his heart that he was on the right path.  Whatever else occurred, this journey was one of the most important that he would ever embark upon.    
  
Oddly, he didn't have any regrets.  Even if he died within that dark city, as long as Garion won he would have nothing to regret.  It was strange, having that kind of inner peace.  He felt...hopeful.  He had faith in Garion.  What they were doing was literally the stuff legends were made of.  They had a purpose, HE had a purpose.  His life had meaning, true meaning.  It was scary to think about it that way.  For all he knew this could be the puppet work of a power beyond his imagining.  But it chose him.  It chose him to guide Garion, to guide a godslayer to do the impossible.  This was far beyond serving just his country.  He was saving the entire world.  
  
Boy, wasn't that an ego booster.  
  
The rays of dawn finally began to peak over the horizon.  He stood from his spot, stretching and went to wake the others.  He wasn't really the religious sort, but he really hoped that the Gods would be on their side when the fighting really started.  He had faith that Garion would succeed, but it didn't hurt to be nice to the ones upstairs.  
  
  
  



End file.
